ious orders and
societies. But these were too closely incorporated with the system of
gentes and other family kinships to admit of their extinction.
Traditionally, it is said that, following the discontinuance of the
prescribed ceremonies, the favor of the gods was withdrawn, the clouds
brought no rain, and the fields yielded no corn. Such a coincidence in
this arid region is by no means improbable, and according to the
legends, a succession of dry seasons resulting in famine has been of not
infrequent occurrence. The superstitious fears of the people were thus
aroused, and they cherished a mortal hatred of the monks.

In such mood were they in the summer of 1680, when the village Indians
rose in revolt, drove out the Spaniards, and compelled them to retreat
to Mexico. There are some dim traditions of that event still existing
among the Tusayan, and they tell of one of their own race coming from
the river region by the way of Zuni to obtain their cooperation in the
proposed revolt. To this they consented.

Only a few Spaniards being present at that time, the Tusayan found
courage to vent their enmity in massacre, and every one of the hated
invaders perished on the appointed day. The traditions of the massacre
center on the doom of the monks, for they were regarded as the
embodiment of all that was evil in Spanish rule, and their pursuit, as
they tried to escape among the sand dunes, and the mode of their
slaughter, is told with grim precision; they were all overtaken and
hacked to pieces with stone tomahawks.

It is told that while the monks were still in authority some of the
Snake women urged a withdrawal from Walpi, and, to incite the men to
action, carried their mealing-stones and cooking vessels to the summit
of the mesa, where they desired the men to build new houses, less
accessible to the domineering priests. The men followed them, and two or
three small house groups were built near the southwest end of the
present village, one of them being still occupied by a Snake family, but
the others have been demolished or remodeled. A little farther north,
also on the west edge, the small house clusters there were next built by
the families of two women called Tji-vwo-wati and Si-kya-tci-wati.
Shortly after the massacre the lower village was entirely abandoned, and
the building material carried above to the point which the Snakes had
chosen, and on which the modern Walpi was constructed. Several beams of
the old missi